Geological Sciences represent a crucial perspective for investigating past earthquakes. Indeed, all moderate to strong crustal events produce direct and permanent effects on the earth surface (i.e. morphogenic earthquakes) and the role of "earthquake geologists" is to recognise, read, describe, measure, analyse and interpret all these linear and/or areal features. Geological investigations of past earthquakes can detect, measure and study such features even several years after they were formed. Moreover, Geological Sciences can investigate both single-event effects as well as the cumulative ones.
Geological investigations of past events is also of primary importance for seismic hazard assessment, which requires the interplay of different disciplines and expertises. For example, geological studies can provide crucial information for regions where instrumental seismic records or detailed historical accounts are not available, but that generated destructive earthquakes in the past and may generate similar events in the future. Geological approaches to the investigation of past earthquakes are fundamental to contribute to determine or to infer important parameters for seismic hazard assessment, including the maximum expected magnitude, the return period for a given magnitude and the mean slip-rate.
In this session, we welcome contributions describing and critically discussing any geological aspect of earthquakes and of seismogenic faults. We are interested in papers based on all geological approaches and particularly on researches dealing with new and innovative methodological or multidisciplinary approaches. We look forward to a lively and cross-disciplinary programme that will bring together a broad range of expertises to discuss on the crucial contribution of Geological Sciences to the investigation of earthquakes and to seismic hazard assessment.